Friday, May 31, 2013

Since we have seen that the Heat cannot win if LeBron doesn't have a huge game, we can conclude that if the Heat can win one more game against Indiana and play San Antonio in the Finals, LeBron will achieve at least another 0.8 Win Shares and have 28.4 for his career.

Win Shares is a stat that was created to evaluate how much a particular player contributed to a team during a game - both offensively and defensively.

It is not a perfect stat (it should generally be paired with PER, which is a stat that tends to provide a truer value of a player's offensive production), but it does tend to spit out a list of the best players in the NBA every year, with maybe one or two anomalies (Kevin Love in a good year supposedly contributes a lot of wins - not true in my experience, but hey....)

Anyway - LeBron has already passed Larry Bird and all of the other 1980s Celtics for career playoff Win Shares. He moved past Lakers great Jerry West this year as well.

As stated above, with just a couple more Heat wins, LeBron almost certainly moves past Russell and probably past Kobe. Even some ridiculous level of play in a 7 game series against the Pacers and a 7 game finals against the Spurs will probably not move him past Shaq.

On a per-minute basis, LeBron is the second greatest player on the list. Win Shares Per 48 in the playoffs:

Of all of the players on the list of 10, LeBron is tied for fewest titles (1 with West; Wilt is next with 2) and has the fewest Finals appearances (3, I believe Wilt had at least 4 and Duncan now has 5).

Thursday, May 30, 2013

When you allow yourself to be frustrated by Mauer's salary, slumps, lack of power or his unbelievable fragility, you tend to forget that he is something that a local Minnesota sports team actually got RIGHT in the draft!

By the end of the year, Mauer will be the 4th best #1 overall pick in the history of MLB (per this guy) and if you toss out horrid steroid user A-Roid, then Mauer would be #3.

The list again exemplifies how hard it is to be an all-time great player. Look at the young guys on the list - Josh Hamilton is WAY behind Mauer in career WAR. Strasburg has a huge name - single digit WAR.

That is a team playing awfully well. 5 guys in the top 12 playoff performers, and all are playing over 350 minutes.

In 2010-11, the Mavericks had the 3-6-7-15-18 ranked players and ended up winning the title over the Heat.

In 2010-11 the Heat were 2-4-13-16-20. The Heat this year have 1-6-17-18 and no other qualifier based upon minutes played.

For you Pacers fans. Well, it seems hard to imagine that the Pacers can make the finals or win the finals at the level of play they are exhibiting.

If you look at their 5 guys playing over 300 minutes and compare them to other guys with 300 playoff minutes, Hibbert is 5th best overall in the playoffs. After that? 16th, 22nd, 24th, 33rd.

So how are the Pacers winning? They play good defense, and they rarely play their bench. Their starters are 1st and 5th-8th in total minutes played. 2-3-4 are Grizzlies, and we know they are done, so it is possible that by the end of this round that the Pacers will have the 5 highest minutes players in the entire playoffs. (Lance Stephenson needs to play 84 minutes to pass Marc Gasol. Lance averages 35 minutes a game, so if the Pacers lose in 6 they will almost certainly have the top 5).

LeBron has played 488 minutes for Miami - 100 more than any other Heat. And by the way - Bosh's production per 48 is 6th best in the playoffs for 350+ minutes, Wade is 17th. Wade has not played well at all. James has played OK for him. It is the guys like Haslem, Birdman and Ray Allen who have surprised to the upside.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Oh David Adkins.... The saddest thing is that THE K sent me the bankruptcy schedules. No house, 3 fairly mediocre cars, a Lincoln Navigator that he will be surrendering. And that pesky $11,000,000 in unpaid taxes.

He lists his residuals at "under $300" a year! "First Kid" just not rolling in the bucks. Where is his teammate from "Necessary Roughness" Kathy Ireland with a few bucks? She is worth like $150M. Remember how Andre's tough defense allowed you to kick that game tying field goal in that 3-3 game played in a downpour? Where would your career be without that, Kathy?!?!?

Sure, Scott Bakula, you dragged the guy out onto the field when you needed a D lineman on a shitty team, but when he owes the IRS $11M you Quantum Leap away as fast as possible!

Monday, May 20, 2013

- Cezary Trybanski had -0.5 Win Shares in his career
but he had a better PER than Will Conroy's negative 3.1

4,100 to 13,999 minutes logged:-- this is a category owned by two men: Woody Sauldsberry and Greg Kite. Both men logged over 10,000 minutes. Kite's 6.5 PER is awful, and the worst. But Sauldsberry is historically dreadful - negative 7.9 Win Shares.

14,000 to 17,999 minutes:
Jason Collins may be gay, but whatever good qualities that gives him are obscured by a historically terrible 7.1 PER

Jack McMahon comes in at 6.2 Win Shares, which is bad, but it makes Sauldsberry's negative 7.9 all the more amazing.

18,000 to 25,999 minutes:Bruce Bowen was a great defender; not very productive on offense. PER of 8.2Howard Komives logged a lot of minutes, did not produce many wins, only 5.0 Win SharesBy the way, this is where DeShawn Stevenson's 9.9 PER and 12.1 Win Shares places him amongst the all-time worst for this minutes played level. He is historically awful, just not the worst.
Above 26,000 minutes, going by increments of 4,000 minutes, you get:

Once you get above 46,000 minutes, there really aren't any guys who suck. Cliff Robinson had a PER under 15. So despite playing ungodly career minutes, his final PER was below league average.

Two of the worst players on the career minutes list were Hall of Famers Elvin Hayes and John Havlicek, whose career PER numbers are both under 18. Hayes registered only 120.8 career Win Shares. Chauncey Billups, Walt Bellamy and Adrian Dantley - each has more Win Shares than Elvin.

And if you want to have a little fun - over 54,000 minutes there are only 2 guys - Kareem and Karl Malone. Karl had fewer Win Shares and a worse PER. So he is the worst in that category of minutes.

Certainly if you control somewhat for minutes played, Kidd's 247 minutes dominates suckmeisters like Manute Bol and DeShawn Stevenson (by the way, how is DS ALWAYS involved in "all-time worst efforts" and yet somehow hangs around? Does he have under age sex pics of someone ELSE!?!?).

Mark Madsen had a playoffs where he shot 1 for 13, but he only played 48 minutes. Erick Dampier in 2009-10 shot 0% in 118 minutes.

It just doesn't happen often that a guy shoots 12% in the playoffs and gets to play in 12 games. In fact, it has happened twice - Madsen and Kidd.

If you are looking for a guy who shot 25% or worse in the playoffs over 240+ minutes, it is just Kidd and Lindsey Hunter in 2000-01 (he doubled Kidd's shooting percentage).

Jordan was less of a ball hog and shot the ball better than Kobe - Kobe's career FG% is 45.4%. Jordan as a Bull in a year where he didn't play baseball never shot as poorly as 45.4%.

Jordan was a better teammate and a non-rapist -- well....yeah. I do not recall any of Jordan's teammates rapping after winning a title w/o Michael and asking "How's my ass taste?" as Shaq did in Miami.

Let's call it like it is. These have been very poor playoffs for the offense. In the regular season there were 24 players who had a PER over 20 and a WS/48 of at least .150.

In the playoffs thus far, of guys who have played 9 games or more (i.e., their teams are winning some games), there are only 7 guys who qualify.

This is NOT what you would expect. Generally the playoffs, particularly the first round, are a time for stars to shine and overwhelm outmatched opponents. Not so this year.

What speaks even more to the physical defensive style of play is that of the top 7 playoff performers on a Win Shares Per 48 basis only Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol are contributing MORE in the playoffs than they did in the regular season on a per minute basis.

How good are James and Durant? Both guys are having significantly worse performances in the playoffs than they had in the regular season. But both guys are, by far, the best overall statistical players in the playoffs.

How great have Curry and Parker been? Pretty great, right? Well:

Curry -- PER 21.3, WS 1.7, WS48 .179
Parker - 25.4, 1.4, .205

they in no way come close to

Durant (who Twitter now says sucks and cannot play) - 26.4, 2.2, .213
James (who is playing at about 85% of his regular season play) -- 27.3, 2.2, .299

Durant is now gone. If the Pacers take out the Heat, the playoffs will have Tony Parker and a bunch of guys struggling to stay above 20 in PER.

13 years he finished no worse than 8th in the league in Defensive Rating. He also has 5 firsts, 4 seconds and 2 thirds in that stretch.
Career Win Shares per 48 -- .2502; second only to Michael Jordan, and ahead of Wilt and LeBron.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

My mom:

I once read a quote from someone (I cannot find it) that went something like, "The world is not made by soft people." The gist being that many or most of the truly great people over time have been very, very tough and difficult to deal with. That would be my mom.

My mom is 77 years old. She will live to be 100 or 110. Why? Just because, you know, "Fuck you, death!" that is why. It will be a sad day when my 105 year old mom has to bury her 77 year old son, but I fear that may occur.

My mom has no patience. She yells at anyone she can find. She believes the world hates her, and everyone in it is trying to take things away from her. You can visit my mom for 2 or 3 days and then her capacity for kidness and caring will be overcome by just how much everything about you and your kids is pissing her off. She is s stress giver - once she has off-loaded her stress to you, she is fine. "So why are you so down HM?" Cuz you just basically screamed at me for 45 minutes. "Oh, that. Come out, aren't you any tougher than that?" Say one clever quip in response to my mom - she will bawl and ask why you hate her.

Even so, five things I learned from my mom:

1) Get educated. It is the way out of a shitty life, and it makes you a far better person.

2) Do not say, "I don't know" unless it is absolutely necessary. You DO know something. Think of anything in the world that you know about the subject you have been asked, what do you know - what might possibly be the answer? If you know nothing about that subject, try to compare the question to a subject that you know and can make an analogy to.

I would say my mom's intelligence and desire to teach me how to anaolgize probably made me a lawyer.

3) At any given point in time, you may hate your kids, but NO ONE ELSE gets to hate your kids. You do not mess with my kids. If someone messes with your kids, the response needs to be swift and certain. A lioness may cuff the heck out of her cub, but no one else comes near that cub.

4) Express your opinion and be your own person. Do not let people feed you crap. Do not believe people know more than you do. They probably do not. Also - if you don't like someone, don't pretend to be their friend. There are bad people - do not hang out or associate yourself with bad people.

5) Fight through adversity. A lot of bad things will happen to you in life (my mom's dad was a verbally abusive person, and my mom gave birth to two children who developed substantial life disabilities). Rain will fall on you, but it must slide right off. You must be a rock. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage, etc......

I know that I am far more like my dad than my mom. But my mom taught me a lot, plus she accidentally taught me how to deal with difficult people, which is a life skill that I have needed far more times than I would care to count.

So Happy Mother's Day, mom. We are stuck with each other for another 20 years, hopefully, so let's try to emphasize our mutual love and work on the rest.

We will use PER as our judge (but fear not, I got rid of low-end bench guys by requiring a certain number of Win Shares).

7. Marc Gasol - 22 PER, up substantially from his 19.5 in the regular season

6. Stephen Curry - 23.5, up from 21.3 in regular season

5. Ray Allen - 24.5 - WAY WAY up from his C minus grade of 14.7 in the regular season

4. Tony Parker - 24.7, up from his 23 in regular season

3. LeBron James - 27.8, way down from his 31.6 in the regular season

2. Chris Paul - poor Chris Paul, 29.2 PER, also 5th in overall playoff Win Shares and 4th in WS/48. His team loses round 1. He was up over his regular season PER of 26.4

1. Kevin Durant - 30.5, up from 28.3. Will he suffer the same fate of losing to Memphis that Chris Paul did? Durant #1 in overall Win Shares and #3 in WS/48.

Of the top 7, only James in playing below his regular season level of play. That, one would think, would be a good sign for Miami (if he moves to his standard level, he will be better), but then you turn around and ask whether Ray Allen can possibly maintain an A+ playoff PER after a C minus regular season PER.

So far, on an individual basis, Durant owns the playoffs. If he can get his team to the WC Finals and play at this rate, it will be an all-timer of an effort.

1) 2 guys left Durant off their ballot altogether. He had one of the top 15 statistical seasons of all time and over 18 Win Shares. Not even a 5th place vote? Did you do your ballot by phone off the top of your head?

"Uh.....James, Kobe, Melo, Paul, and, uhhhh, Tony Parker?

2) Gary Washburn voted for Melo. You had James putting up a top 5 all-time statistical season on the team with the #1 overall record and........."Well, I think Melo was more valuable to his team." Yes, because if you replaced James' 30 PER with, say, Mike Miller, I think the Heat probably wins almost 66 games.....you know, like.....41. That is close to 66, right?

3) Wade got a 3rd place vote - really??? Based upon Win Shares, he had his 6th best year of his career. Based upon per minute Win Shares? 7th best. The only way you can vote for Wade is if you believe he should own 4 or 5 MVPs by now...

4) Best player in LA? Chris Paul -- ouchtown, population YOU, Kobe!! Query this - All-NBA team? LeBron, Durant, Duncan, Chris Paul. But is it Westbrook, Parker, Harden? Who takes that last spot?

As always, the 5th place votes are just a little confusing - are the writers splitting the contract incentive with the player? Garnett?!?! David Lee? Ty Lawson? Stop me when you hear the name of a guy who would even be seriously considered as a top TEN player in the league......

The comments to the article are far, far scarier than the actual vote. Nothing really has changed since 1520 in the South. Hey, Rand Paul, you want to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964? You don't think that South Carolina within one week would go back to blatant discrimination against blacks? Look at these comments. Look at the margin by which this blatantly unconstitutional bill was sent through.

Some notes for the South:

1) Read the Supremacy Clause to the Constitution; it basically says that the feds can tell you what to do and that a state declaring federal laws null and void is, well, not only silly, but unconstitutional (you know, the Constitution you so revere);

2) We fought a war over slavery, which you now say was really over "states rights" (I guess the right of states to have slaves); you lost. You got your asses kicked. You were the 2012 Thunder, the North was the 2012 Heat. Lincoln made you his bitch, so his party got to set the rules, which it did through the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. Read those Amendments and ask yourselves how "sovereign" your states are - not very fucking sovereign, so suck it.

3) The comment that the Supreme Court cannot declare a law unconstitutional would be intellectually interesting, except for the added comment that no statute has ever been passed allowing judicial review. Um, if the rule of judicial review for federal laws is not in the Constitution, then what sort of statute could be passed to allow it?

Your position is that the federal courts cannot decide the constitutionality of federal laws, but..........the states can!?!? See point 1.

In short - you lost this battle almost 150 years ago. You may want to update your legal strategies. I am sorry that you can no longer enslave black people. Sorry that didn't work out. I am sorry that you have to eat in the same restaurant and sleep in the same hotel as black people - I know you don't want to. And I am really sorry that the rest of the country elected a half-black guy who wants people to have health care coverage. I know that it chaps your ass to have a black skinned guy tell you what to do. If it makes you feel any better, imagine it is his lower middle class white mom who is telling you what to do from the grave. Maybe then you can sleep at night. And when you dream at night, imagine that Rand Paul may become President and repeal the Civil Rights Act. Maybe that can get you through despite your knowledge of the fact that a black skinned guy, bolstered by black voters, runs a great deal of your life and can fuck with you in an infinite variety of ways.

7. Corey Brewer - by working at a ridiculous effort level, Brewer has become.....still a below average regular season player (14.7, .093). When the other guys try as hard, you would expect him to suck.

Deng used to be a better player - but ridiculous minutes over the years and age have made him an average player. With that background, would you look for an improvement in the playoffs? No, quite the opposite.

Jennings is a JR Rider type guy - he can lay some big numbers on you when he is motivated and you are not. That will not be happening in the playoffs when you predict that you will beat the Heat.

Kevin Martin and Jeff Teague are slightly above average, but limited, players who have glaring weaknesses in their games. Such things tend to get exploited in the playoffs.

GUYS WHO ARE REALLY LETTING YOU DOWN

2. DeAndre Jordan - 17.2 PER and a .148 WS/48 in the regular season. You'd expect that he could at least give you a 12 and a .072 or SOMETHING. You would be wrong. 42% from the floor (mostly dunks and layups), 20% from the line. Offensive rating 88, Defensive rating 109!!!! 0 Win Shares in 5 games.
Ouch. I mean, go 10-10-4blocks or something. Maybe 4 of 6 from the field?

1. Paul Pierce - I know he hit some shots in Game 5, but overall, what a train wreck. An offensive rating of 87. Negative offensive wins shares. Why? Well, it is a combo of the 39% shooting and the 5.4 turnovers per game. Can the Celts win in 7? Well, how about The Truth ups his playoff level of play to just a career worst 16.1 PER?? If he could do THAT in two games, the Celts look pretty good.

In the history of the playoffs, guys who have played 5+ games in the playoffs during a season have only turned it over 5.4 times a game 3 times - Pierce, Dwight Howard, Charles Barkley. Barkley and Howard both shot over 57%, so at least when they were able to get a shot they were effective. Pierce. miraculously, shoots and misses 61% of the time and turns the ball over on 21.5 of every 100 Celtics possessions. AND his Usage Rate is over 30!!

So, you have a guy with the ball all of the time who cannot make a shot and who is turning it over at a historically awful rate.

Come on, Paul Pierce - I don't want to compare you with Cliff Robinson, but I will!

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About Me

2015 -- time for a new profile.
Summary: 1964-1966 -- Urbana, Illinois.
1966-1982 -- small town in western NY; football QB, baseball center fielder, 6th man on the basketball team (OK, I am not real proud of that).
1986-1989 -- Durham, NC law school watching the greatest college basketball program of all-time (OK, so I am biased).
1988 summer -- Minneapolis, MN -- bunch of really hot blonde girls walk around a lake and encourage me to come back to MN
1989-Present -- MN (couldn't resist the area)
Loves and Weaknesses -- hoops, politics, general trashy pop culture, pretty women.
Aspirations -- to some day match up with my driver's license weight; to have someone some day say to me, "You don't look that old."
Status -- wife, 3 kids born 1994, 95 and 98, 50 years old now in the rearview mirror, a big gut every day in the bathroom mirror, wide bodied, and, if I must say so myself, super smart.
Enjoy my Blog.......or just get the hell out.